Organized kids’ closet/drawers

Thank you so much for all of the sweet comments yesterday about the flood in my home town. I really appreciated the kind words. Such a tough situation. My mom and I talked several times throughout the day and she was constantly overwhelmed by how many people jumped right into the mess to help. It’s always so touching to see a community come together during times like this. I am so proud to come from such an amazing little town full of some of the nicest people you could meet. I wish I could be there right now. But somehow I have a feeling that “my crew” wouldn’t be that much of a help. :)

I’ve been in a total funk ever since I heard the news about the flood (and especially about the state of a very close friend’s house) so to cheer myself up a bit tonight I decided an organizing post was in order. Organizing (and posting about organizing) is always an instant upper for me. My secret go-to drug. :) I always say this, but my house really is the most organized when I’m feeling sad or stressed. Organizing lifts my spirits instantly and I turn to this quick fix time and time again. Today is no different!

I try to stay on top of my kids’ closets and drawers by constantly getting rid of clothes that don’t fit or that they aren’t wearing. You’ve seen Ellie’s closet before:

I’m happy to say that since thiscloset makeover last Novemberwe’ve stayed on top of this space and haven’t had to re-organize it since. Addison’s closet was another story. I don’t have before pictures to share, but because of Addison’s love for fashion combined with the fact that she gets all of Ellie’s hand me downs, her closet and drawers were BUSTING at the seams. I spent a few days over the summer and completely re-organized the space. I got rid of a lot and took bags of clothes to goodwill. Felt SO good.

Here’s what her closet looks like now:

SO much better!

A quick breakdown of how I’ve organized her clothes –

We are still laying out outfits at the beginning of each week. LOVE THIS. It is working so well for us. These are her outfits for this week. As is usually the case, she was in a dress mood. :)

I hang these clothes with their “accessory sacks”on the upper right side of her closet where they are easy to grab and layout for each day.

Everything else to the left of her weekly outfits are long sleeved tops that aren’t worn as much. Winter clothes for the couple of months that it cools off around here.

There is a shelf above these clothes where I store the girls’ pillow pets.

I make every ounce of space count!

Below the winter shirts is a shelf I use for the girls’ pony and pet shop village. I keep these toys here because this shelf is easy for them to reach and they play with these toys often.

Below that shelf is where I keep tank tops and short sleeved shirts. Weather appropriate clothes for most of the year. For the few months it cools off here, I flip the racks and put the warmer clothes down below and summer tops up high. That way Addie can reach her clothes. :)

This is the right side of the closet.

The middle is open shelving where I store a few extra games. The lowest shelf holds all of the girls’ “breakables.” Random ceramics they’ve made, piggy banks, a tea set. All that girly stuff that they want to be able to reach, but that also needs to be up and away from a certain two year old.

The right side of Addie’s closet is for all of her dresses.

This girl loves a good dress. :) I put the fall/winter dresses on top.

Summer dresses down below. We are still wearing sleeveless stuff around here. It has been so hot lately!

Below the shelves are some drawers that were way too stuffed full of clothes before. Not anymore! The drawers in her closet hold:

Swimsuits.

Ballet clothes and tights.

Beach summer camp suits on the right and our sad “winter wear” on the left.

HA! Yup. That’s all we’ve got.

I cleaned out so many clothes that by the time I finished I had two empty drawers! Love that. I’m sure they will be filled soon, but what a nice feeling in the mean time.

Addison also has a dresser in her room so I went through those clothes as well (seriously, this little project took several days!).

Top drawer holds pajamas.

Next drawer holds skirts.

I use the Dream Drawer Dividers in a lot of my drawers. In this drawer they separate leggins/capris from Ad’s socks and underwear. Do you love the cloud over her underwear? Figured I don’t need to air all of our dirty laundry on this blog.

K. That was a bad joke. It’s past midnight right now so I get a pass.

Next drawer down holds pants. Which my girls don’t love so I don’t buy much of them.

The bottom drawer is still where we keep the barbie dolls.

When I straighten things up they look like the picture above.

Then days later they look like this again. It’s ok. I’m good with chaos. As long as it’s controlled chaos.

:)

p.s This week has been busy with new house stuff so if you’ve emailed me and haven’t heard back I’m so sorry and I will get back to you – probably over the weekend. After I de-stress from this week by re-organizing our junk drawer. :)

Comments

Your girls always look so cute! I’d love to buy some of their clothes for my only girl to wear after them? Quite a bit could fit in a flat rate priority box right? :-) Just letting you know….it could be another option for you!

Your organising posts, are my favourite!!! :) Just did this with my little girls last week, feels so good having clear spaces again, but your post makes me want to do it all over again :)

I’m so sorry to hear about your home town!! We saw the same thing here last year with floods that I can’t even describe covering almost our entire state, and just so many people lost everything, it was horrifying. But so many strangers reached out to each other to help, locally and across the State and country, it was an incredible feeling, I felt so blessed to be part of our community. I really hope your family and friends are all okay, and are feeling the love from their community there too :) It sounds like you come from a special town, hopefully everything’s cleaned up and restored quickly xo

I’m thinking that my household would run much more smoothly if my go to drug was organizing instead of american cheese! You do such an amazing job and have officially become my motivation! My house thanks you for the kick in the rear!

Great job Erin! I can’t believe you {temporarily} have 2 empty drawers! I know what you mean about organizing making you feel better. There’s something about bringing order to chaos (anywhere!) that makes other parts of life feel less out of control :)

I was wondering how your girls do in dresses at school…my daughter also loves wearing them but I can’t picture her playing on the playground without her undies showing or getting her dress all dirty.

wow another amazing organizing post. I think we are twin sister who got separated by birth. Because I do the same thing when I am stressed. i just cleaned out my kids closet last week. We are still holding summer clothes since it is so much hot in CA. I love all that winter coats, gloves and hats….but isn’t it sad that we can not wear much here :(

I know this is off topic, but can I ask what size mac do you have? I remember a while back you mentioned getting one. Also do you have the pro or air? Im trying to decide what size to get and Im leaning towards the macbook pro since it has the disk option with it and am thinking maybe the 15in since it has the bigger screen. Are you happy with your mac?

I love your organizing tips.I have just started using a few of your ideas and love your closet ideas but we use the hanging cubbie thing for clothes for the week and I loooove them.I am sitting here laughing at your small pile of hats and clothes.We live in WNY and usually have snow from late october eraly november til the end of march beginning of april so my kids have dozens of hats,gloves and mittens and at least 3 winter coats and 2 pairs of snow pants

Organizing does the exact same thing for me. I am at my most peaceful when I am labeling and putting things in bins! I have a question for you. I know Addison loves clothes and she is older than my daughter. I have a 2 year old that is COMPLETELY obsessed with clothes – dress up clothes, her own clothes, my clothes, hubby’s clothes. She is constantly pulling stuff out of drawers and has at least 15 outfit changes per day. Any mom to mom advice on controlling this chaos? My first is a boy and we never really had to deal with this! :)

Colleen – Ha! We have our share of naked barbies around here and they are one of my biggest pet peeves! I think my girls have finally learned to just dress them because mom will make them do it anyway at clean up time! :)

For those of you who asked me questions I will answer them in a Q&A post on Monday (if that’s ok!). :)

Love when you do posts like this, as it inspires me to go clean up my girls drawers too! :) they also have a ton of clothes… I really should stop buying! :) hope the organizing task accomplished making you feel a little bit better??

Very sorry to hear about your hometown Erin! That kind of thing just really shakes you up. Glad everyone is safe though.

Question about the dividers. I have a couple sets of them (I think? Or something that looks the same!) and I love how they divide drawers but the ones I have are always coming loose. Not sure if I’m doing something wrong…it sound like you are happy with your and it’s not an issue?

Totally silly question here! My two oldest kids are the same ages as your girls, and I am wondering what kind of hangers you use in your girls’ closets. I still have the baby/toddler hangers in my kids’ closets, but they are getting too small for their clothes. However, the adult plastic hangers are a little too big. Which plastic hangers are you using? Only an organization freak would even worry about such things!

Hi Erin! Thanks for all your inspiration. Question: Do your girls play in their good clothes? Where do you store their shorts- maybe I missed that… my girls are 7, 3, and 1, so I get lots of ideas from you!

Welcome to Sunny Side Up where I share my obsession with organization and my love for home design and decor. My husband and I just finished building a house and I can't wait to put my spin on the place and share it all with you. I have three little ones and love everything about motherhood. Except the cooking. I've never enjoyed the cooking. :) Like the city we live in, things are generally pretty sunny around here. Thanks for stopping by!